


A Lost Weekend in Coronado

by helsinkibaby



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/M, Het, Romance, post ep to 7x01, season seven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26034910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: The rest of the team get Danny a plate of wings at Side Street. Steve, meanwhile, goes to see a doctor.
Relationships: Noelani Cunha/Steve McGarrett
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	A Lost Weekend in Coronado

**Author's Note:**

> I think the timeline tracks. Don’t tell me if it doesn’t.

The rest of the team might decide to go to Side Street for drinks, treat Danny to an order of wings there, but Steve declines the offer. And no matter what his friends might think, it's not because he's overdone it today, not because he's tired and aching and he's decided that listening to a doctor might be a good idea. 

Well, not entirely. 

It's just a different doctor that he wants to listen to. 

His footsteps echo along the long hallway leading to the medical examiners’ offices and it takes him a few minutes to find the right door - he usually heads straight for Max’s office, doesn’t usually have to go quite so far into the building. He pauses outside for a long moment, considering if he really wants to do this, then reminds himself who he is, what he’s capable of. A deep breath later and he’s knocking on the door, waiting until he hears a voice say "Come in," before he pushes the door open. 

"Commander McGarrett." Noelani is sitting at her desk, her hands stilling over the keyboard as she looks up at him, her eyes wide. "What brings you here?" 

It's a reasonable question for an ME to ask; after all, she's already processed all the bodies he's sent her way today and even if she hasn't touched the most recent one, cause of death isn't exactly a mystery. But it just so happens that he's not here on a case and in the pause between her asking the question and him answering it, he can tell she realises that when her lips turn up in the tiniest of smiles. 

"I think you know." 

***

 _2001, Coronado, California_  
"C'mon, man, it's my birthday... and we have earned this!"

Steve couldn't deny either truth. However, it was also a rare weekend off from SEAL training and all he really wanted to do was to catch up on his sleep. But no, that wasn't good enough for some of his boys. Not when it was Jackson's birthday and there were drinks to be had and hangovers to be avoided. And if, in the very packed bar, there were numerous pretty girls who were very interested in the SEALs in training from the nearby military base, well then, so much the better. 

So, shaking his head, he accepted the bottle of beer, stood at the bar with the rest of his boys and surveyed the place, not really planning on picking someone up but not averse to the possibility either. Still, Freddie had evidently decided that, even though it was Jackson's birthday, it was Steve who needed to get laid and he made it his mission that night to find Steve the perfect woman. 

Which Steve found pretty damn amusing, at least until an evil smile crossed Freddie's lips. "There she is... the perfect girl." He wasn't subtle, actually pointing across the room and, against his better judgement, Steve followed his gaze. 

And froze.

It didn't go unnoticed by Freddie who laughed, clapping him hard on the back. "That's what I'm talking about... a little bit of home, am I right, man?" He took a long swig of his beer. "And since I happen to know you can't be trusted to go it alone..." 

Steve had been training with Freddie for months by now. Still he was surprised by the strength with which the other man propelled him across the bar, bringing him to a stop in front of a girl who stood a full head shorter than Steve, her long black hair trailing down her back, eyeing them up with frank disdain. "You're from Hawaii, right?" was Freddie's opening line and she rolled her eyes in response. 

To be honest, Steve couldn't blame her. He did the same thing. 

"What gave it away?" Her sarcasm was like a living thing and despite himself, Steve found himself getting interested. 

"Nah, it's not like that." Freddie held up both hands as if in surrender. "It's just you're from Hawaii and so is my friend here." 

The girl looked Steve up and down, lifting both eyebrows and fitting more disdain into the word "Really?" than should have any right to squeeze into two syllables. 

And fine, Steve got that, all right? He might not have been native Hawaiian, but the facts were simple: he was born on O’ahu, his dad was born on O’ahu and his grandfather was entombed on the USS Arizona, so he knew the attitude was far from warranted. “I’m _kama’aina_ ,” he told her and he had the pleasure of seeing her blink in surprise. “Born and raised in Honolulu.” 

“I grew up on Maui,” she said and he tilted his head. 

“I love Maui.” It had the bonus of being the truth. “My parents took me camping there when I was a kid, we went to the Pools of Ohe’o, there used to be a campsite near there...”

Somewhere during the sentence, she’d started to smile. “There still is... it’s one of my family’s favourite places. We go there all the time.” 

“Wow.” Freddie was looking between the two of them. “Imagine, you guys could have met there as kids.” 

Steve looked at him, then back to the girl. “We went to a black sand beach too... freaked my kid sister out.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Freddie smirk as he took a giant step backwards, obviously happy to leave Steve to it. “She sat on my mom’s knee crying the whole time, refused to move. We had to leave early and bring her whale watching before she’d stop.” 

At the time, he’d been frustrated because he’d been having a great time, swimming with his dad. But now, watching this girl laugh, her whole face alight with humour, he found himself sending a silent apology to Mary for every bad thing he’d thought about her that day. “I worked on the dock with one of those boat companies during summers in high school,” she said. “Sometimes they’d let me sneak onto the boat and go out if it wasn’t busy.” 

Steve nodded, impressed. That was his kind of summer job. “I’m Steve, by the way,” he said, stepping closer to her. “Buy you a drink?” 

Her smile grew wider and, man, it was a great smile. “You may,” she said. “And I’m Noelani.” 

“Noelani.” He let the name linger on his lips, liking the sound of it. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

***

 _Present Day_  
Her face is impassive for a moment as the words sink in. When they do, a smile breaks across her face and just like that, the serious medical examiner he encountered earlier melts away, replaced by the girl he still remembers from fifteen years ago. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me,” she says and he tries not to take that personally. He’s never been the type of guy to have a girl in every port but she has no way of knowing that. 

“Oh, I remember you, Noelani.” He steps into the room and lets the door close behind him as he crosses to stand on the other side of her desk. Just like he’d done that first night, he says her name slowly, letting the syllables linger on his lips. With the benefit of age and experience, he sees the effect it has on her, doesn’t miss the little shiver she gives. Brief as their encounter had been, he’d found himself very familiar with that shiver. “I just wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.” 

She lifts both eyebrows and stares him down, just like she’d done in the bar when Freddie had told her that he was from Hawaii. “Forget a one night stand with a hot Navy SEAL?” 

She’s teasing him. He’s pretty sure she is anyway. But the words, “It wasn’t a one night stand,” leave his lips anyway. 

“Forgive me,” she says, with a wave of her hand. “A lost weekend with a hot Navy SEAL.” 

Yep, definitely teasing. He feels his lips twitch. “Much better.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I gotta say... I wasn’t expecting to ever come across you here - you wanted to be a surgeon as I recall.” 

“I did.” Her smile changes from teasing to slightly sad. “Got all the way up to almost getting a surgical residency before I changed my mind. And now here I am.” 

She shrugs, like she’s almost embarrassed and he doesn’t get that. “Well, Max speaks very highly of you.” Which is the truth; during one of his visits to Steve post liver transplant, he’d lamented Mindy’s resignation then, in the next breath, sang the praises of his new hire, one Doctor Noelani Cunha. Steve just hadn’t reconciled the name with the girl from that weekend in Coronado, and of course, he’d never known her surname. “Tells me we’ll be in safe hands when he leaves.” 

Noelani’s cheeks flush and she looks down. looking pleased, and Steve can’t help where his mind takes him, to the first time he saw her cheeks flush like that. 

***

 _2001_  
“You know what I don’t get?” Steve was slowly trailing kisses the length of Noelani’s spine as she lay on her stomach, her eyes closed and her cheek pillowed on her arms. 

She opened her eyes slowly and met his gaze, a smile spreading across her lips. “Is this some Navy S.E.A.L. type innuendo?”

The question surprised a laugh out of him. “You’re from Maui,” he reminded her. “You go to O’ahu State. Why would you come to California for a vacation?” 

“Alison’s family have a beach house,” she answered and he nodded in understanding. Free accommodation was never something to turn your nose up at. “Besides, we thought it’d be fun to see the Pacific from another angle.” 

But there was something else, he could tell. “And the fact that there’s a Navy base nearby?” 

He pressed his lips to the curve of her hip, nibbling a little bit, loving the little gasp she let out as he did so. “Had no effect whatsoever on our decision.” 

Her lips said one thing, but the flush on her cheeks, the hitch on her breath said something else entirely. “So it was just pure dumb luck we met,” he said, letting his fingers join his lips along her body. She hummed a little in response and, with the barest of pressure on her hip from him, rolled over onto her back. Steve raised himself up a little, shifting so that he was poised over her, his face level with hers. 

“Something like that,” she allowed, her hands sliding up his chest, one staying there, one travelling up to the back of his head. 

“So let’s make a little more luck,” he murmured, bringing his lips to hers and pressing his body against hers. 

***

 _Present Day_  
“So what about you?” Her voice brings him back to the present moment. He blinks, having been distracted by his memories but she doesn’t look annoyed. Instead she prompts, “You were training to be a Navy SEAL, now you’re a cop?” 

“I got my trident,” he tells he, lowering himself into the chair across from her. “Spent six years with the SEALS, five with Navy Intelligence... then about six years ago, I was transporting a prisoner, an arms dealer...” He pauses, because this part never gets easier. Noelani frowns, like she sees that this is going somewhere bad and she doesn’t like it. “His brother kidnapped my father, tried to arrange a trade... then they attacked the convoy. Long story short... I had to kill the prisoner before he killed me. So his brother killed my dad. I was on the phone to him, I heard the whole thing.” 

She looks horrified, her hand pressed high on her chest. “Oh my god,” she breathes. He almost regrets telling her but he couldn’t have stopped the words from coming if he’d wanted to. She’d been easy to talk to all those years ago too. 

“I came back for the funeral and the Governor offered to put me in charge of her new task force. I said no at first... that lasted until I found Danny... my partner, Detective Williams, investigating the crime scene. He followed procedure, tried to keep me off the investigation... I called the governor and took the case from under him.” 

Noelani lifts an eyebrow. “I bet he loved that.”

Thinking back on those first few weeks makes Steve smile. “It was not love at first sight,” he acknowledges with a chuckle. “But we worked out our differences in the end.” He pauses, considers. “Mostly.” He shrugs. “He gave me half his liver, so...”

He only realises what he’s said when her jaw drops. “Excuse me?” Her voice has raised several octaves too. Steve’s far from an expert with women but he knows that’s not good. 

“Yeah, so... I got shot?” He shifts under her gaze, reaches up to pull at his ear. “And my liver was pretty torn up so I needed an emergency transplant... Danny and I have the same blood type, so...”

She’s staring at him, wide eyes flicking over his body and not, he thinks, in a good way. “When was this?” 

Definitely not good. “A little while ago.” 

She narrows her eyes, like she’s realised that what he’s not saying is telling her more than what he is. “When did you get out of hospital?” she asks. Well, demands is far more like it. 

He considers lying but that would be worse. “Yesterday?” 

“And you’re running around after criminals?” Pitch and volume are both higher in that sentence. “Are you insane?” She sounds like Danny and for one brief moment, he considers setting them up. Then he pictures the two of them wrapped around each other and his stomach lurches so violently that all the SEAL training in the world can’t hide his reaction. Noelani sees that - of course she does - and presses her lips together. “Okay, shirt off.” 

If he’s honest, there was a part of him that had come to this office tonight hoping he’d hear those words. He’d been hoping for a different context though. “You’re not even gonna buy me dinner first?” he quips and he regrets it when he sees the glare she shoots in his direction. 

“If I find out that you’re not going to collapse in a heap, I’ll consider it,” she tells him and he thinks that’s the best offer he’s had all day. 

His shirt comes off and, unlike years ago when her reaction had been one of admiration - and that’s fact, not vanity, she’d told him as much in words and actions - this time, she frowns, her eyes locked on the scar across his abdomen. When she crosses to him, that’s where she first focuses her attention, fingers touching his skin gently but still making him jump. She doesn’t apologise. “Nice scar,” is all she says before she starts with poking and prodding in earnest. When she’s seemingly satisfied, she puts down all her instruments, leans back against her desk but not quickly enough that he doesn’t see the shake of her hands. 

There’s a long moment of silence where he just looks at her. When he speaks, his voice is low. “So, what’s the verdict, Doc?” 

“Your surgeon did a good job,” she tells him. “But you should not have been back at work today.” 

Steve grimaces. “Yeah... I’m starting to get that.” He lifts his shirt up from the chair where he’d dropped it but he can’t resist teasing her before he puts it back on. “Seen enough?” 

Her lips twitch. “No comment.” 

But her eyes follow his movements as he fastens the buttons on his shirt and he doesn’t miss it. “You know,” he says as his fingers move, “I wasn’t kidding about dinner.” He holds her gaze steadily. “My treat... pay you back for the consultation.” He holds up his hands. “I promise... no funny business.” 

Noelani looks at him for a moment longer, her eyes travelling over his body slowly. Then she looks at her desk, the files on top of it, then back to him again. For a second, he thinks she’s going to say no. Then her eyes move across his body once more, slowly and deliberately. “Too bad,” she says. 

It takes a second for the words to land and when they do, his jaw drops. By the time he’s recovered, she’s at the other side of her desk, settling back down at her computer. “Dinner sounds great.” He can’t help but smile at that. It’s negated by her next words. “But not tonight. You need to go home, rest up.” She’s writing on a post it note as she talks, hands him across a piece of paper with a phone number on it. “But you can call me.” 

His fingers brush against hers as he takes the paper. “We, ah... we never got round to this the last time, did we?” 

***

 _2001_  
Noelani was smoothing her hair down in front of the mirror when Steve came up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist and leaning down to nuzzle her neck. “Stay,” he said and she laughed as she rolled her eyes. 

“The girls will think you kidnapped me,” she told him and he shrugged. 

“Tell them I did but it wasn’t against your will,” he suggested, trying to help her by smoothing down an errant strand of hair. “You look great by the way.” 

She met his gaze in the mirror, lifted one eyebrow. “I look like I’ve spent the last twelve hours doing exactly what we’ve spent the last twelve hours doing,” she pointed out. He didn’t disagree, he couldn’t, because she wasn’t wrong. He just happened to think it was a good look on her. “I can’t believe you don’t have a hairbrush.” 

Steve laughed at that, lifting one hand from her waist to run it over his head. “Not much need for a hairbrush in BUD/S.” He brought down his hand to her shoulder, trailed it down her arm, watching goosebumps erupt in its wake. 

“I guess not.” She looked into the mirror for one long moment, then sighed as she shook her head. “I think this is as good as it gets.” He loosened his grip on her waist just enough to turn her around in his arms, her hands going to his bare chest. “You’re making it very difficult for me to leave.” 

Steve shrugged as he brought his lips to her. “That’s kind of the idea.” Because he was fairly sure his buddies wouldn’t understand, wasn’t sure he even understood himself, but all he knew was that he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her yet. 

And when her mouth opened under his, he had an inkling she might feel the same. 

“Spend the day with me,” he said as he pulled away. One brow raised, she looked over his shoulder at the twin beds, one gloriously rumpled, one completely intact. He definitely owed Freddie one for not coming back here last night. 

“And what would your friend say to that?” 

“I honestly cannot repeat what Freddie would say.” Except she didn’t mean it like that and he knew it too. “I don’t mean here. We can go out some place... explore the town.”

Noelani bit her lip, looking tempted. “Is that how you usually treat your one night stands?” 

“It’s not a one night stand,” he corrected her. “It’s a lost weekend.” 

Her smile was bright as the sun outside. “Much better.”

That sounded hopeful. “Is that a yes?” 

Her smile grew even brighter. “Yes.” 

***

 _Present Day_  
Her smile shifts a little, grows sadder. “We were kids,” she tells him. “On our way to very different places.” 

She’s right. Doesn’t mean he can’t engage with a few what-ifs. “And yet,” he hears himself saying, “we both ended up here.” 

“Yeah.” Her smile is wide again and he finds himself thinking he could get very used to that sight. “Funny how life happens like that.” 

“Yeah.” He folds the piece of paper carefully, slips it into his pocket. “I should let you get back to it. I’ll call you.” 

“Promise me no more crazy running around?” 

He’s not sure if his reputation has preceded him or if she got all that from her brief examination. Either way, all he does is nod his head. “I promise.” 

For once, he means it too. Nothing is going to stop him being healthy enough to take her out to dinner. 

She beams at him and he blames that entirely for the fact that he suddenly feels a little light headed. She’s got quite a smile. “Goodnight, Steve.” 

He walks backwards out of the office so he doesn’t have to stop looking at that smile. “Goodnight, Noelani.” 

He smiles the whole way home.


End file.
